Mrs Finnegan will RETURN — Brighton’s Regency Housekeeper has NOT abandoned you entirely

I know you have wondered where I have been since I embraced the holy state of matrimony.
Have you been worried?
Let me SET your mind at rest.

I am alive.
I am well.
I am still married.

But alas! I have been buried in the account books of my dear husband which are a cacophony of disorder. Every page (written in very neat and very TINY handwriting) sounds alarm bells. As I dig deeper the bells get louder.

I am not near the end yet as the man wrote copious notes about everything! Do you KNOW he paid thruppence three farthings for a carter to deliver a free catalogue of bridles back in 1827? No, of course, you don’t. No one needs to know that…but in the next line Master P noted that he presented a bill for his Riding Master services which – as far as I can see – has never been paid.

So, I must carry on digging.

Meanwhile, dear friends, will you JOIN me in looking back to my very FIRST missive when I was new and FRESH at The Regency Town House. Some of you may remember that it was the time of the great contagion and the rest of the household had gone to the country and I was left all alone in the big house with a bundle of letters waiting for an answer…

I am told that YOU eagerly anticipate the publication of MY CHRONICLES and I can assure you that at this very moment, I am at my desk, sunlight slanting in through the basement window and a neat pile of paper in front of me.


FOR YOU I will endeavour to cover all these sheets – and they are great in number – before nightfall, or by early dawn, or by the end of the week at the very, very latest.  

BUT

I have written much for YOU already. Another pile of papers sit behind me. That pile is covered in my fine copperplate and very soon (by some magic process of which I have been given only vague details) it will be transformed into a handsome weekly missive and sent to YOU.

BUT

It is not quite finished.
I HAVE TOO MUCH TIME. That is the truth. 

Brunswick Square is very quiet. No clopping of horse hooves. No grind of cartwheels on cobbles. No raucous shout of uncouth workmen. No nursery maid running after a child, no child playing with a spinning top, no banging, arguing, or doors being slammed in temper. No pumping water from the well, no washing dishes or sweeping floors. No smell of lavender as a linen chest is opened.

NO LIFE.

If I know you are out there and sincerely and truly wish to read my poor words, I will summon up every scrap of energy, harness my intellectual endeavour and put my shoulder to the writing plough.

I will do it.

WAIT FOR ME. 

It won’t be long. That pile of virginal white paper no longer seems quite so…so…so threatening. 

Readers, we can do this together. You give me heart.

Ah, reading those words takes me back.

And history is repeating itself because yet again I have to ask that you Wait for me. I AM ON MY WAY.

Yours respectfully

Mrs Finnegan

p.s. I AM NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, DEAR READERS.

Will you show your faith in me by signing up to my subscription service?
There is no charge involved (all gratuities are EXPRESSLY forbidden) and delivery is executed by gentlemen with excessive good manners (with and without top hats). Click HERE and you won’t run the risk of missing my magnificent* return.

• When I say magnificent I don’t wish to imply anything gaudy or over-egged.
  Or that there will be speeches.
  Or town mayors announcing my chronicles open and their lady wives shaking hands with everyone over 14.
  When I say magnificent I really mean something rather like this.